“Sir Charles lay on his face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the ground, and his features convulsed with some strong emotion to such an extent that I could hardly have sworn to his identity. There was certainly no physical injury of any kind. But one false statement was made by Barrymore at the inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the ground round the body. He did not observe any. But I did—some little distance off, but fresh and clear.”

“Footprints?”

“Footprints.”

“A man’s or a woman’s?”

Dr Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered.

“Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

Sir Charles Baskerville, a Devon landowner, has died suddenly, apparently from the fright given him by an enormous fearsome dog. Some of the local people believe an old legend according to which the dog is not an earthly animal, but rather a supernatural hell-hound which inhabits the area’s lonely dangerous moor and has haunted the Baskervilles for generations. It’s up to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to show what the true nature of the hound is while seeing to it that no harm comes to Sir Henry Baskerville, Sir Charles’ nephew and heir who has come to live in Baskerville Hall and claim his inheritance. Many commentators consider that The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories and it is certainly one of the best-known detective stories ever written.